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Tutankhamun's Photographer

It has taken nearly 100 years but the exploits of Harry Burton, the extraordinary man that captured Howard Carter’s discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb is starting to be recognised.

The story of this unsung hero is to be told in an hour long documentary which is aired tomorrow night (Wednesday) on BBC FOUR. Margret Mountford (formerly of the Apprentice) travels to Egypt’s Valley of the Kings with modern day photographer Harry Cory Wright to find out how Burton pushed the boundaries of photography to produce his iconic photographs, documenting the discovery that brought the excitement of this amazing discovery to the world.

The Tutankhamun Exhibition in Dorchester has a special display featuring a selection of 31 gravure prints of Burton’s photographs of Tutankhamun’s Tomb. The display features plates used in the book of the special exhibition of Burton's photographs held at the Oriental Institute of Chicago in 2006 and at the Metropolitan Museum in New York in 2007.

Recruited by Howard Carter to document his discovery, photographing the contents posed a real challenge as Burton battled the elements coping with the heat, dust and sand painstakingly recording the tomb and its contents. His dramatic and artistic images clearly convey the excitement and the tension of the work, with many of his iconic images becoming as famous as the Tutankhamun’s treasures themselves.

“Burton’s images are more than just dry records, they inspire a sense of wonderment, conveying as they do the excitement and atmosphere of Howard Carter’s discovery” said Tim Batty, Curator of the Exhibition. He continued, “With no television at the time, it was these wonderful images that brought the incredible discovery to people all over the world”.

The special display of duotone prints in the exhibit concentrate on three years of Howard Carter’s work in the tomb from the break-in until the revelation of the famous Golden Mask of the young pharaoh.